Means for steadying paper carried by smut-sheet machines



' J. E. GILBERT AND G. W. HARRIS. MEANS m s TEADYING PAPER CARRIED BYSMUT SHEET MACHINES.

APPLICATION FILED MAIL I, I920.

. JZ/ I W r 1 G 9 2 W m m m 1% H e mm /0. QM.

James E. GILBERT AND ens-nu w. natal-us, or cnicaao, rnninors,ASSIGI-IORS To PATENT GILBERT SLIP-SEEEIING IMACHINE GOMIANY, OFGIcIfLCAG-U, ILLINOIS, A COB,-

IPORA'IION OF ILLINOIS.

MEANS FOR STEADYING PAPER CARRIED BY S1VIUT-SHEET MACHINES.

Application filed March 1,

To all whom it may concern Be it lrnown that we, JAIVIES E. GILBERT andGLENN WV. Haunts, citizens of the United States, residing at Chicago,county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a certain new anduseful Improvement in Means for Steadying Paper Carried by Smut-SheetMachines, of which the following is a specification.

Patent Number 966,739 to J. E. Gilbert, issued August 9, 1910,illustrates and claims a machine for taking care of sheets of printed orlithographed matter between the time they receive the impression of inkand the time they are sufficiently dried to prevent offsetting whenplaced on a pile. roadly speaking that machine includes the use of anintermittently moving and successively folding stripoi cloth betweenwhich successive sheetsot printed paper are placed immediatelyon beingprinted, and in which they are carried until sufficiently dry to beautomatically delivered from the machine, all as will more fully appearfrom the inspection of said patent.

In that machine a section of a continuous strip of cloth is temporarilystretched between supports during which time it is reterred to as aprintsheet support. \Vhile this section of cloth is being fed into positionin the support the paper to be taken care of travels along and iscarried by it to the position where it is to be smutted by thesucceeding section of cloth. A single sheet of paper cannot, for obviousreasons, be carried, far and at a high rate of speed unless retained bysome sort of a-device in proximity to this print sheet support. Inpractice it is necessary that a moving tape or belt be located above thepath of travel oi the surface of the print sheet support and a properdistance from it so that any breath of wind tending to elevate the paper0E from the moving print sheet support will only move it into proximitywith the tape and thus the paper will, while moving, be re tained andsteadied in its position on the moving print sheet support.

In a machine out the type of said Gilbert patent the cloth, a part o1which constitutes the print sheet support, is moved by a roller 70 ofsaid patent. This roller starts initially at the position of Figure 21and travels Specification of Letters Patent. Patgnted A114)! 29 1922 is?n 1920. Serial lilo. 362,534.

through the positions of Figures 22 23. 2 and 25 to the position ofFigure 26 where the printsheet support 105 of that figure is attached toa vertical guide of the machine after which the roller is withdrawn fromun der the print sheet support and the print sheet il carried thereon.The section of cloth thus stretched as a print sheet support andsustained by the frame of the machine is neces-" sarily subject to sagwhich means that as soon as the tension of roller 70 is removed atposition Figure 26, of said Gilbert patent, and the roller begins torecede from under the print sheet support and print sheet the cloth hasa tendency. to sagdown on both sides of the roller 70. This creates bythe moving action of the roller, a serious agitation of 'he print sheetsupport and consequently of the print sheet on it, which tends to throwthe now laterally stationary print sheet on the now fastened print sheetsupport up against the moving tape which was initially provided to guideit into place with consequent smearing of the printed matter on theprint sheet. n the Gilbert patent roller 70 travels on a straight track53 and this injurious result necessarily follows iromthe return of theroller 70 on that straight path. The object of this invention is to soconstruct the roller moving mechanism viz., the track on which ittravels, and so mount it with reference to the sustaining tape mechanismthat the injurious results describedare avoided.

The invention consists in means applicable to a machine of the Gilbertpatent class, which can be easily and conveniently made, and whichoperates to obtain the desired obje'ct. Particularly the inventionconsists in and out of combination, with other parts of the use of atrack for the travel or: the roller which carries the print sheetsupport, as a result of whose use the injurious result is avoided. Moreparticularly the invention consists in features and details ofconstruction hereafter more fully set forth in the specification andclaims.

Referring to the drawings in which like numerals denote like partsthroughout the several views,

Figure 1 is a side view of so much of a machine of the class describedas is necessary to illustrate this invention.

' Figure 2 is a similar view of the machine of the same type constructedunder the ,old practice and without this invention, as illustrating thedisastrous results which can and do happen.

In each figure the numeral 10 designates a vertical upright frame memberacross which extends a horizontal bar 12 carrying one or more rollers14, placed one behind the other as viewed in the drawings, .over whichone or more guiding tapes 16 heretofore referred to, travel in thedirection indicated by the arrow 18. In Figure 1 the portion of clothwhich forms .the print sheet support is designated as 20 While theadjacent portion frequentl referred to in said prior patent asthesmutsheet is marlred 22. The corresponding portions of cloth in Figure 2 aredesignated respectively 24 and 26. As in said prior patent the clothreferred .to is attached at the juncture of the print sheet support andthe smut sheet to a bar 28 adapted when fed over into the position ofFigures 1 and 2, to slide downward in suitably formed guides 30 in theframe member 10. As in said prior patent the cloth has been carried overto this position just described by the movement of rollers to a positionwell to the left of that shown in the figures and. corresponding to thatof Figure 26 of said prior patent, after which said roller has beenmoved in the direction of the arrows 32 to the position shown. Therollers 70 which manipulate the cloth are sustained on a frame 34carried by track rollers 36 which are reciprocated backward and forwardin the trackways, to be hereafter described, by any suitable mechanism,one form of which may be that shown in said Gilbert prior patent. In thestructure of this invention shown in Figure 1 .these rollers 36 aresupported upon a downwardly curved track rail 38 and held thereon by aparallel guide rail 40, each conforming in general to the curvature ofsag assumed by the smut sheet 22 and other sections of cloth 42previously folded into position in the machine in the manner made clearheretofore herein and in said prior Gilbert patent.

In view of the fact that the track rail 38 is thus curved downward thesmut sheet sup port 20 starts to assume its natural clownward curvature,i. e., that of the sheets 22 and 42 almost immediately, that the roller70 deposits bar 28 and starts to move to the right. The result is thatthe print sheet 44 carried by this print sheet support also settles downto as low a point as possible with the result that, as shown in thedrawing, the right hand end of the print sheet is never elevated to asuflicient height so that it can strike the lower tape 16. For purposesof illustration print sheet 44 has been shown as though it were acomparatively stiff, rigid sheet of cardboard. In practice when lighterpaper is used the extreme right hand end may not stick up as does theend of print sheet 44 but the agitation of the paper on the print sheetsupport caused by the passage of roller 70 to the right is suflicient sothat almost any part of the paper might fly up and strike the movingtape 16 were the track of this invention not used as shown in Figure 1.

Figure Qshows the disastrous result which occurs in ordinary practicewhere the roller 70 is guided by a perfectlv straight trackrail 50 whichutterly fails to conform to the downward curvature of the sheets ofcloth 26 and 52, the latter corresponding to In this case the left handend of the print sheet 54, especially designated 54, strikes against thelower moving tape 16 with the resulting smearing of the inkimpression onthe print sheet 54. As before, if stiff cardboard is not used roller 70agitates the softer paper sufiiciently so that almost any part'of it mayfly up and strike the moving tape.

To a layman the structure may look simple but in actual practice it hasbeen anything but obvious and has proved so desirable that machinesactually installed with straight tracks have been altered at the customers expense to install adevice of this invention.

Having thus described our invention what we claim as new and desire tosecure by Letters Patent is 1. In mechanism of the class described, asuitable frame, a flexible print sheet support, movable from a positionoutside the machine to a position where it is stretched approximatelyhorizontally across the ma chine, means carrying the print sheet supportto said stretched position and witlr drawing from under said print sheetsupport and in substantial contact therewith, a track guiding said printsheet support moving mechanism so shaped that in withdrawing the printsheet support it is given a minimum amount of agitation by the passageof said supporting mechanism.

2. In mechanism of the class described, a frame, a flexible print sheetsupport stretchable across the frame, a stretching mecha nism, and atrack traveled by the stretching mechanism in placing the print sheetsupport across the frame conforming approximately to the curvature ofthe sag in the stretched print sheet support.

3. In mechanism of the class described, a supporting frame, a printsheet support, print sheet support moving mechanism for stretching saidsupport across the frame, a print sheet being carried therewith as it isstretched, means above the path of travel and the print sheet support asit moves to this position adapted to retain the-print sheet on the printsheet support, and a track guiding said print sheet support movingmechanism as it is withdrawn from underneath the print sheet supportwhich so guides said moving mechanism that the print sheet on thesupport is not thrown into contact with the guiding mechanism.

4:. In mechanism of the class described, the combination of a framesupporting a tape movable longitudinally thereof, a print sheet supportstretchable across the machine below said tape, and in proximity theretoa moving member moving in contact with the underside of said print sheetsupport to place it in position and withdrawing from said position in apath immediately underneath said print sheet support, and a track devicefor supporting said print sheet moving mechanism curved distinctly awayfrom the path of travel of the tape with the result that movement of theprint sheet moving mechanism from under the print sheet support does notsufiiciently agitate paper on the print sheet support to cause it toengage the tape.

5. In mechanism of the class described, a suitable frame, a flexibleprint sheet support stretched approximately horizontally across themachine, means requiring movement across the frame in approximately theplane of the print sheet support and in substantial contact therewith, atrack guiding said means which requires movement, so shaped that as thelatter is moved across the machine it gives a minimum amount ofagitation to the print sheet support.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names.

JAMES E. GILBERT. GLENN w. HARRIS.

Witnesses:

CHAS. E. GILBERT, DWIGHT B. CHEEVER.

